


Intent

by inplayruns



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Post Swan Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2012-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:12:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inplayruns/pseuds/inplayruns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel in Hell, after "Swan Song"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intent

There is a story Castiel will never tell another soul, not even Dean, not even through eternity in Heaven. He will especially not tell Sam. 

Many demons surround Lucifer’s cage in Hell, throwing themselves at it and wailing in sheer ugly elation. They are not particularly powerful, but they are extremely numerous; any sort of attack on it will be incredibly difficult. 

When Castiel does make it to Lucifer’s cage, many more powerful demons are too close to him. Alastair may be gone, but he left hordes that were almost as nasty as him behind, and the averted apocalypse only taught them some new and very unpleasant techniques. While he flees, Castiel catches glimpses of impossibly wicked spirits. He recognizes the remnants of the souls of Leah Gideon and Jake Talley, and offers up a silent prayer of mercy for them. 

He is still thinking about another demon, though, one huddled too close to the cage. Castiel had only had time to grab one thing from Lucifer’s hold, and it had been Sam Winchester. A horrendously flawed version of Sam, Castiel realizes it now, but had Castiel spent time checking him, the two of them would have been incinerated completely. 

An ugly, pale demon was hunched by Sam. The somehow still human boy was huddled to the edge of the cage, trying to escape Lucifer and Michael’s wrath, and the demon tried to cling to him with wispy fingers from outside the bars. Castiel looked at it, snarling. Not _it_ , he comes to realize, because he recognizes the features even as the face is just gray elephant flesh twisted into odd starburst shapes, dark hair flowing out like kelp behind. _Her_.

In his true form, Castiel can read the thoughts of demons. They were often not worth reading: _HATE HATE HATE_ beat out in thuds that sounded like the slaughter of farm animals. But the demon Ruby, trying to clutch her fingers around what is left of Sam Winchester, is not thinking that. 

She is pleading something: she meant the best for Sam all along. Ruby ached to give him the strength she felt within him, and savored how he took her blood and made it something better than a sulfur-scarred thing pumping through a demon. She despised the way Sam and Dean found themselves tangled in a knot of guilt, and wanted to slice the knot loose. Sam was Lucifer’s true vessel, an honor beyond imagining. That’s what Ruby wanted, her paradise on earth delivered in the form of a man she loved.

Castiel gave her a glance of recognition, tempered so he wouldn’t smite her with a mere look. He understood, but he learned, then, that intention was not all. He should have remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a drabble, but I adore this scenario.


End file.
